Hello everyone: Does anyone know if Oregon has a bounty on coyotes? Someone I was just talking to said he thought that there was this year, because of the high numbers of animals. I told him I would ask here, because I have no clue. Thank you very much.

Found this doing a search on "Oregon coyote bounty":
ORS 610.005 Administration of laws for destruction of predatory animals. The laws for the destruction, eradication or control of predatory animals by the state shall be administered by the State Department of Agriculture. Any sums appropriated by the legislature for such purposes shall be expended in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. No part of any such appropriation shall be paid for bounties. [Amended by 1959 c.240 §3; 1989 c.750 §1]
NOTE: (That was in 2005 and may have changed).
Looking further into the legal speak mumbo jumbo, it appears individual counties within Oregon can petition the USDA to help erradicate some predatory animals if they can document a serious problem in predation. If proven, the USDA will hire professional trappers/hunters to reduce the numbers of preditory animals. (Must be where the cougar control system came from...HA!)

As Richard mentioned, there might be some "private bounties" available from cattle or sheep ranchers in Oregon.

Hello everyone: Does anyone know if Oregon has a bounty on coyotes? Someone I was just talking to said he thought that there was this year, because of the high numbers of animals. I told him I would ask here, because I have no clue. Thank you very much.

There is no state or cattlemen bounty. I know OHA puts up some cash for coyote control through the air but not sure on the ground. There could be individual county bounties but I ahven't heard of any, at least East of the cascades.

I still think you should go after them with a vengence:grin: By the time you drove somewhere for the bounty at $3 fuel it would be a money loser anyway it looks like to me.(well maybe not at $100)

Thanks for the info, I will pass it on the my friend. I kind of thought there was no bounty.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GSD

Found this doing a search on "Oregon coyote bounty":
ORS 610.005 Administration of laws for destruction of predatory animals. The laws for the destruction, eradication or control of predatory animals by the state shall be administered by the State Department of Agriculture. Any sums appropriated by the legislature for such purposes shall be expended in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture. No part of any such appropriation shall be paid for bounties. [Amended by 1959 c.240 §3; 1989 c.750 §1]
NOTE: (That was in 2005 and may have changed).
Looking further into the legal speak mumbo jumbo, it appears individual counties within Oregon can petition the USDA to help erradicate some predatory animals if they can document a serious problem in predation. If proven, the USDA will hire professional trappers/hunters to reduce the numbers of preditory animals. (Must be where the cougar control system came from...HA!)

As Richard mentioned, there might be some "private bounties" available from cattle or sheep ranchers in Oregon.

Actually there is a coyote contest available for OHA members through the local OHA chapters.
If your chapter is not holding a contest you may take them to a neighboring chapter and enter there.
Each chapter has their own specific guidelines for participation so just check with the local board members and they can give you the scoop on it.

Also don't forget there is a OHA statewide cougar contest again this year!!

Capitol Chapter OHA and the Portland Chapter has been spending OHA dollars for several years funding airial gunning of coyotes on private property. This private property is wintering ground for wildlife and the report on the effort a few weeks ago was over 3,500 coyotes taken this year. The gunning is done by USDA - APHIS - Wildlife Services. I always wonder how much wildlife the effort has saved over the years. There is not way of knowing that but I am sure it has helped. The OHA money pays for flight time. I think there is an effort down in Harney county but do not know the details so will not comment on that. If you would like more details send me a PM.

The OHA State Board of Director also approved $250 to any Chapter that runs a coyote contest. The money is to be used for prizes in the contest. OHA Cougar Contest
Also do not forget the OHA Cougar contest that is ran each year. If you are a member of OHA make a copy of your cougar tag and send it to OHA Headquarters in Medford this gets you into the drawing. If you kill one you are into another drawing. I had the pleasure of presenting one of the winners with his 325 for the cat he took. Loper (ifish name) won a scope last year just for having a tag in his pocket and mailing a copy to OHA HQ.

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Old Soldier
Supporting Hunter's Right & Wildlife is not a matter of time it is commitment! Member, OHA, NRA, NWTF, CCA

Capitol Chapter OHA and the Portland Chapter has been spending OHA dollars for several years funding airial gunning of coyotes on private property. This private property is wintering ground for wildlife and the report on the effort a few weeks ago was over 3,500 coyotes taken this year. ...The OHA money pays for flight time. I think there is an effort down in Harney county but do not know the details so will not comment on that.

Does this irk anybody besides me? I'm an OHA member and I'd love the opporunity for a crack at 3500 yotes per year, as I'm sure Rusty and a bunch of other guys would. Flight time isn't cheap, so I'm wondering why our membership dollars are being used to fund flights when there are plenty of highly skilled, careful, and qualified people who would jump at the chance, and possibly even pay for the chance to pop some yotes.

Does this irk anybody besides me? I'm an OHA member and I'd love the opporunity for a crack at 3500 yotes per year, as I'm sure Rusty and a bunch of other guys would. Flight time isn't cheap, so I'm wondering why our membership dollars are being used to fund flights when there are plenty of highly skilled, careful, and qualified people who would jump at the chance, and possibly even pay for the chance to pop some yotes.

Because even us "highly skilled, etc." hunters wouldn't even come close to killing 3500 coyotes through traditional hunting techniques. When the goal is to eliminate coyotes, sport hunting is almost never the best method available.

If you really want to kill coyotes, there are tons of them left all around the state. You didn't lose any opportunities as a result of this action.

Because even us "highly skilled, etc." hunters wouldn't even come close to killing 3500 coyotes through traditional hunting techniques. When the goal is to eliminate coyotes, sport hunting is almost never the best method available.

If you really want to kill coyotes, there are tons of them left all around the state. You didn't lose any opportunities as a result of this action.

The question in yote hunting is always access to habitat. Yea, sure, there are places to hunt if you want to drive 250 miles to Burns, but what about central Oregon or some place within a reasonable distance. Look how many years it has taken for Rusty to get access to land over around Dufur. Not many of us have the time to knock on the doors of the landowners and develop those relationships. And what about here in "the valley"?

If the landowner is willing to take OHA money for predator control, why can't they lalso allow OHA members to hunt from the ground using more traditional methods?

There's tons of coyotes here in the valley you just have to drive up outside of nearly any small town that borders the cascades from Estacada to Brownsville and walk or bike behind the timber company gates and start calling. I have seen way more coyotes on this side doing that then I ever have in eastern Oregon when I go calling with my cousin over near Hermiston. I have seen bobcats, bears, and cougars in the same areas doing the exact same thing. It just takes some leg or bike work.

Here's how I look at it. The bounty is every coyote you kill is worth about 100 quail eggs, 50 duck eggs, and 5 or 10 fawns each year. That's a heck of a price!

So true, but it's also way to many mice and rats and rabbits that aren't killed. I lived in Idaho in the 70's, they had a BIG bounty on coyotes people went willy-nilly killed LOTS of yotes, then the rabbits got out of control. Then the state set up rabbit corraling and bashed the rabbits with clubs. It was awful. They didn't want to spend the bullets to kill them. It was so sad. I hope that if there is a bounty, that it will be small enough that people will kill them, but not in TOO BIG of numbers. We (nature) do need a few to keep vermin under control. I hope everyone understands and doesn't get mad. It's just the facts.

rabbit overpopulation is not coyote dependant. i have been in areas with thousands of rabbits and dozens of coyotes all living together. drinking from the same water hole side by side. watched coyote hunting voles while the rabbits hopped right next to them doing it. rabbit over population is more effected by birds of prey (or lack there of) than coyote overkill. the areas with bountys are normally areas with high calf mortality. where coyotes are eating the fresh born. calfs, antelope fawns, elk fawns, deer fawns are all eaten by coyotes. in antelope country kill every coyote you can, it may be that instead of taking 10 plus years to draw a tag, if we hunters reduce the coyotes, it may only take 7 years to draw an antelope tag or less.

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I have been wrong once before. Just once mind you. It was for several years, Ok A decade or more. But just the once.

Does this irk anybody besides me? I'm an OHA member and I'd love the opporunity for a crack at 3500 yotes per year, as I'm sure Rusty and a bunch of other guys would. Flight time isn't cheap, so I'm wondering why our membership dollars are being used to fund flights when there are plenty of highly skilled, careful, and qualified people who would jump at the chance, and possibly even pay for the chance to pop some yotes.

Hawk
I think you missed the point the idea is to take coyotes that are doing in wintering wildlife every hunter benifits from this effort. There was a bunch of questions ask before we provided money for this program and the answers were that the wildlife are on "PUBLIC LAND" during hunting season. I hunt coyotes in the winter and so do many other OHA members but we do not put a dent in the population.
I hope this help you understand the reason for membership money going into this program.

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Old Soldier
Supporting Hunter's Right & Wildlife is not a matter of time it is commitment! Member, OHA, NRA, NWTF, CCA

Thank you for the info, I was just a kid when the problem in Idaho happened.

Quote:

Originally Posted by baltz526

rabbit overpopulation is not coyote dependant. i have been in areas with thousands of rabbits and dozens of coyotes all living together. drinking from the same water hole side by side. watched coyote hunting voles while the rabbits hopped right next to them doing it. rabbit over population is more effected by birds of prey (or lack there of) than coyote overkill. the areas with bountys are normally areas with high calf mortality. where coyotes are eating the fresh born. calfs, antelope fawns, elk fawns, deer fawns are all eaten by coyotes. in antelope country kill every coyote you can, it may be that instead of taking 10 plus years to draw a tag, if we hunters reduce the coyotes, it may only take 7 years to draw an antelope tag or less.

Does this irk anybody besides me? I'm an OHA member and I'd love the opporunity for a crack at 3500 yotes per year, as I'm sure Rusty and a bunch of other guys would. Flight time isn't cheap, so I'm wondering why our membership dollars are being used to fund flights when there are plenty of highly skilled, careful, and qualified people who would jump at the chance, and possibly even pay for the chance to pop some yotes.

Yep me too. I questioned the use of these dollars from the beginning. I would be really interested in seeing a GIS map showing the "wintering grounds" overlayed on the private landowners property and see which land owner get a free predator control courtesy of OHA. I think some accountability should be in order. So they killed 3500 coyotes.....OK they've been doing this for how many years??? 3 or 4?? should be able to see results by now. What do the ODFW game surveys indicate??? What is fawn and calf survival rate in these areas?? Do the numbers add up?? Is the program providing increased hunter opportunity or is the program just a "feel good" thing? That's what I would like to know.

Yep me too. I questioned the use of these dollars from the beginning. I would be really interested in seeing a GIS map showing the "wintering grounds" overlayed on the private landowners property and see which land owner get a free predator control courtesy of OHA. I think some accountability should be in order. So they killed 3500 coyotes.....OK they've been doing this for how many years??? 3 or 4?? should be able to see results by now. What do the ODFW game surveys indicate??? What is fawn and calf survival rate in these areas?? Do the numbers add up?? Is the program providing increased hunter opportunity or is the program just a "feel good" thing? That's what I would like to know.

Are those areas closer to their MO's? Are there more hunting opportunities, either for the public in general or OHA members in particular, on those private lands?

If there are yotes that need to be thinned, why can't OHA members hunt those private lands for yotes, in addition to the aeriel shooting?

Before Capitol Chapter and Portland Chapter agreed to spend the money earned by those of us that raise funds for wildlife was spent we did a lot checking maps and talking to the bio about where the wildlife is during the hunting season. All of this confirmed that the wildlife was on public land during the hunting season. Until the late winter when they moved to the private ground. Again there is no way to take that many coyotes by hunting in these or any other wintering grounds. You may or may not know that APHIS can take coyotes on private ground but not public (this is my understanding). I find it hard to understand why any hunter would not want to see these coyotes removed at a reasonable price when there is no way hunters would ever be able to and have not made a dent in the coyote population. That is not to say that hunters should not hunt and I support and encourage that as well.

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Old Soldier
Supporting Hunter's Right & Wildlife is not a matter of time it is commitment! Member, OHA, NRA, NWTF, CCA

I find it hard to understand why any hunter would not want to see these coyotes removed at a reasonable price when there is no way hunters would ever be able to and have not made a dent in the coyote population. That is not to say that hunters should not hunt and I support and encourage that as well.

That's well said, and I agree. I think there are some people who believe that sport hunters are an effective way of achieving coyote population reduction, and that's just not realistic. We can knock the population down a bit, and of course it's better than nothing, but any area that gets hit hard by sport hunters simply educates the remaining coyotes and makes them tougher to kill. It doesn't reduce the numbers the way that aerial hunting, M-44's and steel laid out by skilled trappers will do.

If the OHA chapters did the research detailed by Old Soldier, I think they likely did a lot of good for the big game animals in that area, and I'm glad they took that initiative. It seems unlikely that this will result in any significant loss of coyote hunting opportunities, given the number of yotes that are out and about throughout the state.

This may be getting off topic, but I read once that the University of Kansas did a study and determined that in a healthy population, up to 70% of the coyotes could be removed and not reduce the numbers (ie. replaced by production).

These guys are durable.

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"...you ride into the grip that you got" -Guy Martin

I find it hard to understand why any hunter would not want to see these coyotes removed at a reasonable price when there is no way hunters would ever be able to and have not made a dent in the coyote population. That is not to say that hunters should not hunt and I support and encourage that as well.

One of my points is, why can't OHA members hunt the private land (that obviously has a lot of yotes) in addition to the aeriel gunning, and have it as a package deal?

who says they are not. i do not know many private property owners who advertise there property for a free for all coyote hunting access cluster malfunction. here is how i look at it, killing coyotes saves fawns, fawns equal adult deer/antelope giving you and me a better chance at seeing a mature buck while hunting. the amount of money OHA and others spend for coyote population control is well spent money. less coyote= more deer and antelope

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I have been wrong once before. Just once mind you. It was for several years, Ok A decade or more. But just the once.

Then we're back to the type of cluster malfunction of the UCAP properties that Bill Monroe wrote about where there property owners are paid money, but no one knows who they are and you have to spend hours and hundreds of dollars in gas to drive around finding them. In this case, the properties that OHA is shooting over aren't even posted.

Why can't we call the OHA office, give them our membership number, and they can tell us where these properties we are paying to enhance are located. Just an idea...

Why can't we call the OHA office, give them our membership number, and they can tell us where these properties we are paying to enhance are located. Just an idea...

What do you think would be the likely effect of that policy? My guess is that at least some of the landowners would say, "No thanks," and shut down the program rather than allowing open access to their property.

I'm really having trouble understanding exactly why you're so interested in hunting these properties in the first place. Do you really want to hunt coyotes right after the aerial gunners have been through there? Do you know how effective they can be in open habitat? I hate to keep harping on this, but there are soooo many other places to hunt coyotes where the populations are very high and the competition is low. I know your heart is in the right place, but the effect of what you're advocating is more likely to be a wrench in the works that would put a stop to the whole program.

I'm really having trouble understanding exactly why you're so interested in hunting these properties in the first place.

I'm not saying OHA should drop the program, but here are my points of contention:

1. Are deer and elk populations measurably increasing in the areas where they're aeriel gunning the yotes, and are those areas approching or exceeding MO's? If it's working, expand it. If it isn't working, drop it.

2. If populations are increasing, then OHA members should be able to find out where those areas are and we should be able to hunt the public lands (if there are any) near those areas so OHA dollars are benefiting OHA members with more quality big game hunting opportunities.

3. I'm as lazy as the next person; if there is an area with lots of targets (yotes), let's "spread the bread" around and give more people more opportunities to hunt. If ground hunters are only 10% as effective as aerial gunning, that's another 350 yotes that aren't killing fawns/calves, etc. You say there are lots of quality yote hunting areas...my question is, where? Rusty and a bunch of guys have invested enormous amounts of time and energy cultivating relationships with people to gain access to good yote habitat. If the quality areas you talk about are readily available, where are they? PM me if you'd rather not post it on the board, but I'm not seeing them.

I'm not saying OHA should drop the program, but here are my points of contention:

1. Are deer and elk populations measurably increasing in the areas where they're aeriel gunning the yotes, and are those areas approching or exceeding MO's? If it's working, expand it. If it isn't working, drop it.

2. If populations are increasing, then OHA members should be able to find out where those areas are and we should be able to hunt the public lands (if there are any) near those areas so OHA dollars are benefiting OHA members with more quality big game hunting opportunities.

3. I'm as lazy as the next person; if there is an area with lots of targets (yotes), let's "spread the bread" around and give more people more opportunities to hunt. If ground hunters are only 10% as effective as aerial gunning, that's another 350 yotes that aren't killing fawns/calves, etc. You say there are lots of quality yote hunting areas...my question is, where? Rusty and a bunch of guys have invested enormous amounts of time and energy cultivating relationships with people to gain access to good yote habitat. If the quality areas you talk about are readily available, where are they? PM me if you'd rather not post it on the board, but I'm not seeing them.

Those are the main ones I can think of...

1 - I agree completely. We (they) shouldn't spend the money if it's not having the desired effect. I would imagine they're monitoring the results to determine if they should continue the program or not.

2 - Hunting the public land around them is completely reasonable. I had understood that you were advocating for access to the private lands, which I think would immensely complicate the whole program and probably kill it.

3 - Once the aerial gunners go through this area, there won't be lots of targets around. If they've done their job well, it will be a very poor environment for sport hunting of coyotes. Just about anywhere else would be better. That was my only point. I don't have any secret honey holes to direct you to other than the obvious ones you already know about.

Rusty, from what I've gathered, has gained access to a lot of private ground that apparently gets very little pressure. The properties that we've been discussing, however, are getting immense pressure and would be worse than just about anything else you could find. That's the reason I was a little puzzled as to why you would want access to hunt them for coyotes.

here is what i know, hunting ranches for coyotes is a waste of time. the ranch hands and everyone on the ranches drive around with coyote guns 24/7 killing every coyote they can. there are a few exceptions but for the most part this is true

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I have been wrong once before. Just once mind you. It was for several years, Ok A decade or more. But just the once.